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The Bill of Rights was added to our United States Constitution to grant us some guaranteed rights. The very First Amendment is under attack and many people are not even aware of it. What does that First Amendment guarantee us?

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
How is the First Amendment under attack?

The first things mentioned in the First Amendment guarantees us Freedom OF Religion and Freedom OF the Press. Those are the two things that we are going to lose if someone doesn’t step up and do something about it ASAP!

This week I received a telephone call with a taped message from former Governor and former Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee to inform me about a pending case against our Freedom of Religion. I don’t have a text of that recording; but here is a brief summary from the organization that called me under the Projects listed on their website:

Defending our National Day of Prayer
Right now a small but dangerous group is threatening to obliterate the name of God forever. The Freedom from Religion Foundation has succeeded in getting a legal injunction against the National Day of Prayer and is planning on using this as the basis of removing the mention of God from every aspect of our culture.

The judge that agreed to the injunction stated in her ruling that a national day of prayer “encourages all citizens to engage in prayer” and this is a “religious exercise that serves no secular function.” It is absurd to picture a society where our children and grandchildren are forbidden to pray as a nation. The reality is that if the Freedom from Religion Foundation wins this case, it would set a precedent that could eventually lead to the banning of any public mention of God.

That’s why we teamed up with Mike Huckabee to defend our God-given right to pray. We are standing up to preserve our National Day of Prayer and need as many supporters as we can get to stand with us in this battle to preserve and defend our right to pray for our country. This is a long and expensive fight, but with the help of our members and supporters we will have the power to win.

The White House attempted to block Fox News from a round of interviews with “pay czar” Kenneth Feinberg Thursday, but the Washington bureau chiefs of the five TV networks included in the White House pool refused to interview Feinberg unless Fox News was included.

This spring a reporter was “confined” in a closet when he attended a Democrat fundraiser as the designated “pool reporter” to cover Vice President Biden’s visit.

Today I found out “The President was in Boston yesterday for a fundraiser. The Boston Herald requested access. It was turned down.”H/T Mark @ Race42012

I know some of you have to be shocked I am taking up a cause that Romney is one of the leaders of. But, this is not about Romney – this is about our freedom!

How can a former instructor of Constitutional law (Obama) get away with breaking our Constitutional Freedom of (NOT from) the Press?

Something needs to be done now before we no longer have Freedom of Religion or a Free Press.

On one of the blog sites that I frequent a few supporters of other candidates questioned Huckabee’s FiCon credentials. On another site a contributor requested that someone “rank these same 4 as to who would be best for a poor economy?” I decided to give that a try using the data available at USGovernmentSpending.com. I’m hoping their information is accurate and am assuming it is from an unbiased source.

I’ll be posting only the information available during the years 3 of the 4 Governors (Huckabee, Romney, and Pawlenty) were serving together and include Daniels during the last two years of that time-frame so we can do our best to compare apples to apples. I hope I figured this correctly. Please feel free to check all the numbers and my math. (If the link starts working properly. I was having trouble with it most of the day.)

First we’ll compare the Gross State Product growth:

Arkansas GSP grew from $77.8 in 2003 to $97.6 in 2007 at an annual rate of 6.35%Massachusetts GSP grew from $297.3 in 2003 to $353.8 in 2007 at an annual rate of 4.75%Minnesota GSP grew from $212.4 in 2003 to $255.3 in 2007 at an annual rate of 5.05%Indiana GSP grew from $239.6 in 2005 (when Daniels took office) to $263.1 in 2007 at an annual rate during the two years we can use to compare of 4.90%

Next we’ll compare the government spending in the state and local government for the four states:

Arkansas spending grew from $13.8 in 2003 to $19.1 in 2007 at an annual rate of 9.97%Massachusetts spending grew from $40.7 in 2003 to $64.1 in 2007 at an annual rate of 14.37%Minnesota spending grew from $37.6 in 2003 to $47.2 in 2007 at an annual rate of 6.38%Indiana spending grew from $42.2 in 2005 to $46.7 in 2007 at an annual rate of 5.33%

Lastly, we’ll compare the Real State Growth:

Arkansas RSG was 3.0% in 2003, 3.7% in 2004, 2.9% in 2005, 2.7% in 2006 and 1.0% in 2007 with a 2.66% yearly average RSGMassachusetts RST was 1.5% in 2003, 2.0% in 2004, 1.1% in 2005, 1.5% in 2006 and 2.0% in 2007 with a 1.62% yearly average of RSGMinnesota 3.4% in 2003, 4.1% in 2004, 1.7% in 2005, 0.2% in 2006, and 0.7% in 2007 with a 2.02% yearly average RSGIndiana 0.3% in 2005, 1.1% in 2006, and 3.1% in 2007 with a 1.50% yearly average RSG

In summary:
Huckabee saw the best annual rate of growth in Gross State Product. Daniels and Pawlenty saw the least growth in spending. Huckabee did the best in Real State Growth. Romney did the worst in all three categories.

I’ll be voting Huckabee for President 2012!

Note: If there is someone out there with the ability to put this in chart or graph form I would really appreciate it.

Update: I struck out the comment about Romney because it was properly pointed out to be inaccurate. H/T Jeff Fuller

Update 2: I was asked to calculate some information for Utah and Jon Huntsman during this time frame, too:

Utah GSP grew from $90.7 in 2005 to $109.6 in 2007 at an annual rate of 10.42%

Utah spending grew from $17.2 in 2005 to $20.0 in 2007 at an annual rate of 8.14%

Utah RSG was 5.7% in 2005, 6.6% in 2006, and 5.8% in 2007 with a 6.03% yearly average RSG

Note: I’ll be adding more information as I calculate it. I’m not sure if I’ll post the information here or write a new blog.